This place didn’t look tired and old to me anymore. I didn’t even notice the worn seats and the mismatched chairs. This bar was the heart of this community, I realized. It was where they celebrated and gathered. And it was where I learned his name. Touched him for the first time. Even the way the place smelled made me feel nostalgic now.
And Daniel wasn’t just some random guy in a bar anymore.
He had become the brightest light in my life, what I looked forward to every day. The man who spent two hours down by a river trying to find me the perfect rock.
He saw me. And I believed him when he said he wouldn’t let me drown.
My heart tugged.
And tomorrow morning, I would drive out of this town and never come back. I wasn’t going to see him again. Any of them.
Daniel turned and looked for me, and when his gaze met mine, he lit up. One of his adorable, dimpled grins, his hazel eyes creasing at the corners.
My heart cracked right down the middle.
He pushed off the bar, closed the distance between us, and slipped his arms around my waist. I was so proud to be the woman here with him tonight. To be his date, the one he chose. It was an honor. Not because he was the mayor or the most handsome guy in the room but because he was the best person in the room.
“Ready to go home?” he asked.
I had to muscle down the lump in my throat.
No. I wasn’t ready to go home. But I’d have to.
We said good-bye to everyone and started the walk back.
Before we left, Daniel had walked me around the VFW, showing me the yellowing articles framed on the walls with stories of his family’s contributions to the town. There was the Spanish flu save and the Prohibition story he’d already told me about. Then there was a newspaper clipping, printed by the Wakan Gazette, about Daniel’s great-grandfather John, who started a human chain to lead children out of the schoolhouse to safety during the deadly 1940 Armistice Day Blizzard. His wife, Helen Grant, used the Grant House’s large wood-fired oven and baked off a hundred loaves of bread and sent it with her husband via sleigh along with medical supplies and firewood to every house in town. Neither of them slept for three days. Survivors recounted tears of joy as John arrived with the care packages. Wakan didn’t lose one person.
There was an article about Daniel’s grandfather William, who came to the rescue in 1975 when a fast-moving wildfire threatened to burn down the town. He coordinated a response team and worked through the night to create a firebreak that saved the town before the blaze reached Wakan. Linda, Daniel’s grandmother, took charge of the evacuation efforts and ensured everyone made it to safety. The Grants were the last people to leave.
After the F2 tornado of 1991, William and Linda Grant set up a generator and a soup kitchen in the VFW to make sure everyone was fed during the cleanup. Then they advocated and won when the county wanted to divert the highway in a move that would have decimated the summer tourism. They kept the town clean and proud and safe. They were Wakan’s first and last line of defense, in all things.
There was story after story.
The Grants were groundskeepers, I realized. Humble royalty. They tended to Wakan and its people with the same care that Daniel tended his garden and his house. It was bred into him, like medicine was bred into me. His kingdom was smaller and his legacy was different, but he was tied to his birthright just like I was tied to mine.
It was funny to think that for the last hundred and twenty-five years our two families had existed at the same time, doing the same things they were doing now. The Grants gave their lives to Wakan and the Montgomerys gave theirs to Royaume.
I bet abandoning his calling never once crossed Daniel’s mind.
I felt guilty wishing I wasn’t who I was. I knew the importance of the Montgomery legacy. I knew what I could do with it, how many people it saved, and how much difference it made in the lives of those it served. But I wished it wasn’t mine. I wished it belonged to someone who knew how to use it. I didn’t, and so I couldn’t honor it the way I knew I should.
Everyone would be waiting for me to become something exceptional, do something huge, make my mark. And I had no idea how.
I had a feeling I never would.
“Hey, you want to see something?” Daniel asked, breaking into my thoughts.
“Sure.”
We cut through the park next to the river and stopped at a statue of a man in the middle of the square. Daniel nodded up to it. “This is my great-great-great-grandfather. He founded the town.”
I looked up at the regal bronze figure. The plaque under it said JOSEPH GRANT.